Finally! The studios have wised up and realized that if they don't offer movies as electronic bits you can legally download and watch whenever you like, savvy computer users will get them anyway.
Blockbuster, Netflix, and on-demand cable are among the expanding number of ways to rent movies. One of the latest is MovieBeam, a jukebox for your home theater that self-stocks via an off-air antenna.
Cable viewers who also want their HDTV have found their love affair with TiVo becoming strained the past few years. That's because TiVo's Series 2 recorders, unlike the DVRs leased by cable operators, have proved stubbornly incompatible with high-def channels. Hoping to make amends, TiVo has unveiled the Series 3 HD Digital Media Recorder with two CableCARD slots.
Computer companies have been trying to get off your desktop and into your entertainment rack for a decade. Ever since the invention of tuner cards for PCs and giant computer monitors that doubled as TVs, they've been pushing the "convergence" of entertainment and computing on a wary public. The reception from A/V enthusiasts has been, to put it politely, less than enthusiastic.
